I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Eternal Union
The day of my wedding. The happiest, most beautiful day of my life, and everything was going wrong.
On the beach where the ceremony will be held in only one hour my fiancé was fighting a hydra, the groomsmen where were warding off one of Ares boars, I was fighting a lytrogonian with Thalia, and my mother wasn't here.
She didn't send an RSVP though I got confirmation from Hermes that she received an invitation. I understand she's busy and doesn't exactly like Percy but I thought she might be able to find at least a little time for her daughter's wedding. If nothing else just to celebrate our survival. Most of her children don't even last this long.
Stab. Slash. Dodge.
My once beautiful dress now fell limply around my body unrecognizable. Torn, scorched, blackened.
Stab. Slash. Dodge.
Tables have been overturned and several chairs were now being used as makeshift weapons for those who thought bringing a sword to a wedding might be inappropriate. Flowers and various decorations were burning. Things Katie had grown herself. Things she was now trying to save.
Stab. Slash. Dodge.
Everyone has torn clothes and is sweaty and uncomfortable and I wonder how they would look if everything had been perfect. All according to plan. I always have a plan, but the plan never works out.
Slash. Dodge. Stab.
Percy. My husband, though we have yet to have the ceremony, still looks perfect. His suit torn and face blackened is as beautiful as I've seen, though that is always my perception of him. He fights, his face filled with anger, the hydra with two heads remaining and we have almost won the freedom to be married.
Slash. Stab. Kill.
Out of the sea rises Percy's father, Poseidon… with my mother, Athena. And with a burst of flame and a flick of the wrist Poseidon turns the boar into a walrus and Athena scorches the remaining heads of the hydra.
Poseidon strides over to his son laughing heartily while my mother glides in my direction silently. I stare and grin and allow a single tear to fall from my face before my mother shares the emotion. I feel only relief and joy as I embrace my mother who has come to send me into my new life with Percy.
"Though I cannot stay," she whispers," I am always with you."
I release, say goodbye, and she leaves. I inhale deeply knowing she has not really left and turn to my husband to be. Poseidon is gone and he's watching me grinning as is usual. I return the smile.
We walk to our positions as was rehearsed while several people hurriedly try to salvage the scene so that maybe it will look a little less like a battlefield. We continue with the ceremony as though noting had gone wrong.
And as I stand waiting for complete commitment I look out at the crowd of bruised, blackened, cut, smiling faces. I look at my husband and think of the love between us and between the family watching us join in this eternal union. Truly unconditional. Impenetrable. Invulnerable to corruption.
I do.